House Finds Secret Service "Responsible" for Trump Assassination Attempt, Kamala's Q&A with Liz Cheney "Completely Scripted,"Space X Rockets Cause Hearing Damage to Whales?! (The Five for 10/22/24)
Plus, the high profile trial of NYC resident Daniel Penny begins. 538's Nate Silver makes an election prediction based on the websites of Trump, Kamala...and Obama in 2008.
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter, but don’t always make the front page.
Let’s dive into the news.
[one]
The House of Representatives has released a damning report about the Secret Service (see the 52 page PDF here).
A lack of planning and coordination led to the “preventable” assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump on July 13, according to an interim report from a House task force investigating the shooting.
The panel released a 53-page interim report on Monday morning — its first since the House voted unanimously to create it in late July — detailing communications and coordination failures between the multiple layers of law enforcement on the ground in Butler, Pennsylvania, for Trump’s rally. The task force also disclosed that Chair Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) has quietly issued three subpoenas to local Pennsylvania agencies for “sensitive documents.”
The Secret Service “did not effectively verify responsibilities were understood and being executed,” and there was no joint meeting between the Secret Service and state and local law enforcement on the day of the rally, according to the report.
The Secret Service also put the building where the shooter accessed the roof outside of the security perimeter for the rally — a point that has sparked frustration among both Democratic and Republican lawmakers for months. And the panel found that there was “disagreement and confusion” about who was responsible for making sure the building was secure.
This report is likely just a first step in more thorough investigations that will spill in 2025.
[two]
A televised Q&A for the Vice President last night…was apparently completely scripted.
Allsides.com reports:
Maria Shriver, the moderator of a town hall event with Vice President Kamala Harris and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) on Monday, told the audience that they would not be allowed to ask spontaneous questions as "pre-determined questions" had already been picked.
"Hopefully, I'll be able to ask some of the questions that might be in your head. I hope so," Shriver said.
Well…that’s awkward.
[three]
Elon Musk highlighted the trend of over-regulation blocking innovation in the U.S.
According to Musk, he was once asked by the marine officials to conduct a survey on whether the rocket can hit a shark during splashdown in the ocean. In his hilarious presentation, the billionaire said that he tried to explain to the regulators that it is very unlikely, but SpaceX did the analysis anyway.
"We said, 'Fine, we’ll do the analysis. Can you give us the shark data?' They were like, 'No, we can’t give you the shark data," Musk recalled the conversation.
"We could give it to our western division, but we don’t trust them.' I’m like, 'Am I in a comedy sketch here?!" he said.
"Then we thought, 'Okay, now we’re done.' But then they said, 'What about whales?' he added triggering bursts of laughter from the crowd.
He then revealed something even more appalling. "They said, 'What if the rocket goes underwater, then explodes, and the whales have hearing damage?' This is real!" he stated. Musk joked that making a rocket can transform into a submarine is an engineering feat even he hasn't accomplished.
It’s worth noting that NASA rocket parts also splash down in the ocean, but the government is notably less interested in policing itself, apparently.
[four]
Daniel Penny, a man in New York who restrained a crazed subway passenger, will face up to 20 years in prison if the prosecution meets a lower burden of proof than first degree murder charges.
The former infantry squad leader has repeatedly said he didn’t mean to kill Neely, a homeless former Michael Jackson impersonator who had battled mental illness in the years leading up to his death.
But prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office don’t need to prove that Penny had the “intent” to kill in order to convict him on the charges he faces.
Instead, jurors will be asked if they believe beyond a reasonable doubt that Penny “recklessly” caused Neely’s death. If they unanimously agree on this, they can convict Penny of second-degree manslaughter.
Penny also faces another charge with a lower burden of proof: criminally negligent homicide.
To convict him of that, the jury will need to agree that Penny disregarded what the law calls a “substantial and unjustifiable risk of death” when he restrained Neely for several minutes.
The defense claims they will put jurors “in the train car” with the defendant to understand Penny’s decision.
Penny’s lawyers, Thomas Kenniff and Steven Raiser, have argued that Penny’s chokehold was justified because of what they called Neely’s menacing behavior towards straphangers — which included ravings that “someone is going to die today” and that he was “ready to go to Rikers.”
“Penny’s defense team will put jurors in that train car and challenge them with what the safest response would be in the face of Neely’s chaos,” said Goldman.
The defense will also likely try to poke holes in the city medical examiner’s ruling that Penny’s chokehold caused Neely’s death.
According to The Free Press, 27 people were killed on the NYC Subway before Penny and Neely’s confrontation.
Charges have been dismissed against Jordan Williams, who was charged with fatally stabbing a 36-year-old homeless man on the subway.
"Our office conducted an impartial and thorough investigation of this tragic case, which included review of multiple videos and interviews with all available witnesses, and that evidence was fairly presented to a grand jury," said a Brooklyn District Attorney spokes person. "Today, the charges against Jordan Williams have been dismissed."
Under New York law, a person is justified in using deadly physical force when they reasonably believe it is necessary to use such force to defend themselves or others from imminent use of deadly or unlawful physical force."
It’s also worth noting that in 2023, charges were dropped against NYC resident Jordan Williams, when he stabbed a homeless man to death on the train. The NYC DA’s office appears to be…quite subjective.
[five]
Finally, America’s best pollster and stats guy, Nate Silver, has pointed out that while Kamala Harris is slightly more likeable than Donald Trump, Harris’s campaign has a pretty serious messaging problem, which is obvious on when comparing candidate websites.
This is the lead image from Donald Trump’s website this morning. To be fair, to get there, you first have to click through an interstitial asking for donations and showing Trump serving fries at McDonald’s — a decidedly softer image. But fun-loving Trump is a secondary brand. The main brand is he’s an asshole. But he’s your asshole. He’s on your side. Like those plaintiffs’ attorneys, he’s somewhat cleverly owning his abrasiveness and unpopularity. Sure, he’ll take slings and arrows from the (BIASED!!!!!) mainstream media. That’s because they’re elites who are not on your side. Trump fights — for you!
And what’s the message in the same position on the Harris website?
14 DAYS LEFT? What kind of message is that? Well, I’ll tell you. The campaigns assume that most people who visit their websites aren’t swing voters but partisans, and the goal when you capture partisans in your marketing funnel to get them to donate to you. 14 DAYS LEFT stresses the urgency of the campaign.
Still, if you do happen to be a swing voter, you’re getting almost nothing from 14 DAYS LEFT. There’s no message. It feels like they’ve run out of things to say. Instead, there’s a lot of bio. “Meet Kamala and Tim” — not Harris and Walz.
Contrast this with Barack Obama’s page from the same point in 2008:
There’s a lot going on here.2 ACTION! PEOPLE! KNOCK ON DOORS! MAKE CALLS! There is not much bio. But there is a substantive policy proposal. Interestingly enough, it’s for a tax cut — an explicit pivot to the center. And Obama isn’t just asking you to trust him: you can click on a calculator to verify that you’re one of the 95 percent of workers who would be eligible for this tax cut.
We’ll find out exactly 14 days from today (errr…I hope so anyway. Fox News is already predicting a four-day delay in the results of the election).
Until the next one,
-sth